GenCon

Hi,

As you can see by the lack of posting, August has been a very quiet month in terms of miniature gaming. I'm still struggling to get everything unpacked and stored away in the house and get a good place for painting set up. So the Spugs are still wanting.

But I did go to GenCon and I got a fair amount of gaming done then and picked up a bunch of stuff for future games. So I remain a classic wargammer in that I've bought lots of stuff when there's still lots of stuff I haven't painted up yet.

Friday was my big gaming day. First up was a WWII coastal forces game in the Black Sea (using the Action Stations! ruleset). I'd first tried coastal wargaming last year and liked it so much I was back again. Once more I was on the German side, but this time I was in something a bit tougher than the converted fishing boat I got last year. Unfortunately, my shooting and our overall strategy was crap and the Russians managed to get a big spread of torpedoes off against the convoy we were protecting. Thus I pulled hard in front of the convoy and sucked up six torpedo hits -- considering that even one torpedo hit had an 80% chance of sinking me, there was nothing left of my boat. The Russians went on to hammer the convoy and most of the escorts. According to the event organizer, the Soviet players probably sank more tonnage in this one encounter than the entire Russian fleet managed during the whole of WWII. Still, it was a fun game as always and I've picked up a fair number of miniatures to run my own games here at home.

The second event of the day was a 2-hour demo of C.A.V. by Reaper minis. C.A.V. is a big-stompy mech game (like Battletech) and it's recently upgraded to a new edition. It's a very fast-playing game. There's no complicated damage charts or power/heat management issues or anything. It's abstracted up a bit so that you can play with several squads of mechs/vehicles/infantry and just slug it out. Each unit has a small table with its stats. As you take damage, you move to the next column of stats which are usually a bit worse. It's a bit like clicky-base miniatures except the stats are contained on the card. There's no overwatch, but you do get to return fire with one weapon against a unit that just hit you (and firing is simultaneous so you use your current stats before the damage degrades them). Frankly, I rather liked it. I'm a bit worried that there's not enough tactical depth to it, but it does play really quick and everything is intuitive. In the demo, I played a bunch of bruisers in the middle and got taken out, but I managed to kill one other guy and seriously messed up a few others.

On Saturday, I also took in a demo of AT-43 and it convinced me that it's a game worth picking up. The pre-painted plastic minis are at least as good as any paintjob I could do and if they're pricey, they're also ready to play out of the box and that probably puts them even with the cost of painted minis. Additionally, during the last hour that the dealer's hall was open on Saturday, Rackham said everything in the booth was 50% off if you paid cash. I only wish I had more cash and more luggage. But I got good starter army for the Red Block faction.

So what miniature-related things did I wind up bringing home from the show?

* C.A.V. starter set

After the Demo, the Reaper guys gave me a coupon for 25% off so it seemed like a good deal. I wanted to read through the full ruleset, but for fast mech fun this seems like a good bet.

* Mechaton starter set

Someone who isn't Vincent Baker, but who really likes Mechaton (the lego robot game) put out these box sets that have enough pieces to build a squad of four "Squat" mechs (the standard design in the Mechaton book). This is a fantastic idea and I'd like to put together larger "army" packs for next year (including vehicles and infantry units).

* Lots of Coastal forces miniatures in metal and resin

I need to get another couple of freighter and some German S-Boats, but I'm well on my way to having a nice starter set to play out some coastal actions here in MA. Also, the ships are dirt easy to paint so hopefully, they'll be in action soon.

* AT-43 Rulebook
* UNA army book
* Red Block Colossus
* Red Block Dragonnov Unit
* Red Block Dragonnov Specialists
* Red Block Hero

I'm getting into AT-43. There, I said it.

And that was my GenCon.

I'm hoping to flesh out my AT-43 collection a bit and perhaps get it out on the table at a local Gaming Weekend coming up in a few weeks.

later
Tom